Mediaboss Marketing

A controversial essay written by former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet in The Economist is generating lots of buzz and criticism due to his contention that a culture of illiberalism has infected The Times.

If you care about the future of journalism and liberal democracy, ignore Bennets message at your peril.

In case youve forgotten, Bennet was pushed out of his job in 2020, after greenlighting an op-ed written by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), which argued that the U.S. military should be called in to quell violence if local law enforcement needed support. This, in turn, led The Times union to decry publication of the piece as a clear threat to the health and safety of the journalists we represent.

The case for publication was simple: Cotton was a U.S. Senator who had then-President Donald Trumps ear. He was also talking about a timely and relevant topic, and (for better or worse) his position was popular with many Americans. This is to say that Cottons take was relevant and, daresay, newsworthy. And, again, this was an opinion piece.

Bennets goal, though, is not merely to relitigate the past, butmore importantlyto warn his colleagues about a new brand of journalists who believe their (social justice) ends justify their (coercive) means.

These illiberal journalists, Bennet explains, are more concerned with group rights than individual rights, which they regard as a bulwark for the privileges of white men. Additionally, they have seen the principle of free speech used to protect right-wing outfits, and do not believe readers can be trusted with potentially dangerous ideas or facts. Bennet also notes that The term objectivity to them is code for ignoring the poor and weak and cosying up to power, as journalists often have done.

Predictably, this rankled some progressive opinion leaders.

Critics of Bennet can attack him on the grounds of identity politics, or say he is merely settling old scores. Likewise, they can point to conservative columnists and positions taken at the outlet as an attempt to undermine his premise. But none of that refutes what Bennet is describing. Bennet does not allege that The Times never publishes conservative viewpoints, but that it heavily skews progressive, and that the biases of young progressives in the newsroom too often bleed into the opinion section.

One neednt agree with every point Bennet makes, butthree-and-a-half-years after his resignationits hard to argue that he is some sort of right-wing culture warrior, or that he has tried to monetize his cancellation. Instead, Bennet is, to borrow a phrase, credibly accusing The Times of attempting to limit discourse on opinion pages, and effectively censoring it, via bullying tactics.

Those of us who care about the future of journalism should avoid the temptation to reflexively dismiss his criticism. Instead, we should admit that he has a point, and admit that we are losing (by we, I mean small l liberals who care about things like norms and institutions).

As populist forces on the right have sought to discredit outlets like The Times, labeling mainstream media outlets as fake news, too many of these institutions have behaved in ways that reinforce the charge. Old-school liberalism espoused open mindedness, diversity, and tolerance, but nowadays, it would be hard to keep track of the number of contrarian or unorthodox ideas that were wrongly dismissed (and, in some cases, censored) as conspiracy theories by todays progressive media elites.

As Bennet notes, The Times was slow to break it to its readers that there was less to Trumps ties to Russia than they were hoping, and more to Hunter Bidens laptop, that Trump might be right that covid came from a Chinese lab, that masks were not always effective against the virus, that shutting down schools for many months was a bad idea.

This is pretty clear evidence that reporters and editors at the newspaper of record are allowing political bias to render them unable to spot uncomfortable truths that run counter to their politics. No wonder so many Americans tune them out.

The people who think limiting the discourse and shielding people are going to work are wrong. Not only is it going to fail, it already has. What is more, Bennets warnings, rightly understood, transcend not just The Times, but the media.

Bennet recalls meetings with fellow leaders at the paper, where they would sit around and lament the proliferation of illiberal journalists. Inevitably, he writes, these bitch sessions would end with someone saying a version of: Well, at some point we have to tell them this is what we believe in as a newspaper, and if they dont like it they should work somewhere else.

That moment never came. Instead, the illiberal journalists swamped the most important mainstream media outlet in Americajust like the illiberal MAGA forces overcame the Republican Party establishment without much of a fight.

This is clearly a trend. And if you think the Democratic Party is immune, we are seeing this right now in the White House, where interns are rebuking President Joe Bidens handling of the Gaza war.

Meanwhile, the bubble Bennet describes at The Times looks eerily similar to what we are seeing at our most prestigious universities. And just as middle America has increasingly tuned out the mainstream media, they are likewise losing faith in a college education.

Whether its on the left or the right, too many of the adults in the establishment are too timid or impotent to tell young staffers, subscribers, or interns (or Ivy League students) no. Instead, they are appeased, which, as the saying goes, is sort of like feeding a crocodile and hoping he eats you last.

James Bennets essay is a clarion call. Anyone who wants to preserve our liberal institutions had better start fighting backand fast.

Go here to read the rest:
Liberals Should Be Disturbed By James Bennet's New York Times Revelations - The Daily Beast

The latest Abacus Data poll shows a nine-point swing between the Liberals and the Conservatives over the last few weeks, closing the gap to (a still wide) 10 points. Is it a mirage or a Christmas miracle for Justin Trudeau and crew?

We also discuss some provincial polling out of the Prairies, an upcoming byelection in Toronto and answer listener questions.

To join the Discord page for The Numbers and to get early access to episodes every Thursday, you can become a member of our Patreon site here. Every second episode of The Numbers (the episodes that are not in this The Writ Podcast feed) is for Patreon members only.

As always, in addition to listening to the episode in your inbox, at TheWrit.ca or on podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, you can also watch this episode on YouTube.

If you want to add The Numbers and our French-language podcast Les chiffres to your favourite podcasting app, you can find them at the links below:

Apple Podcasts: The Numbers / Les chiffres

Spotify: The Numbers / Les chiffres

Go here to read the rest:
The Numbers: Wait, maybe the Liberals aren't doomed after all? - The Writ

Open this photo in gallery:

The Syncrude oil sands mining facility near Fort McKay, Alta., on Sept. 7, 2022.ED JONES/Getty Images

It started as a Liberal campaign promise in 2021: to cap and then rapidly reduce emissions in the oil business.

The industry has to shoulder a large load as Canada cuts emissions across the economy. The Liberal pledge was easy to advertise, clear and simple, especially viewed against a Conservative climate plan that was (and is) badly lacking.

Turning the promised emissions cap into actual policy has been neither clear nor simple. After two years of work, the final rules are still more than a year away.

Last week, at the United Nations climate meeting in Dubai, the Liberals released the general framework. It fits well with the meetings conclusion this week, as countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels with accelerating action in this critical decade.

There are, however, pluses and minuses in the Liberal plan. They set a realistic goal, to cut emissions in oil and gas by at least 20 per cent by 2030. But as the Liberals had signalled, they chose an overly complicated system one that faces political and legal risks.

The need to push oil companies remains abundantly clear. Their climate ambitions are inadequate. Over the past two decades, Canadian oil output doubled. Emissions per barrel went down but total emissions from the production of fossil fuels climbed about 20 per cent. Across the rest of the economy, they fell more than 10 per cent.

There is some early good news. Oil industry emissions peaked in 2015 and have since fallen about 4 per cent. This is because of federal and provincial rules to reduce potent methane emissions. The success of those regulations shows that emissions can fall if industry is pushed.

The challenge is that oil and gas emissions need to fall by a lot more. This space and others, such as the Clean Prosperity policy group, have argued a more stringent industrial carbon tax on oil and gas was the best strategy. Canada didnt need yet more bespoke policies. Rules on methane, for example, exist regardless of whether theres an emissions cap.

The move to deploy cap-and-trade for oil emissions fits the Liberals retreat from carbon pricing. In late 2020, they made the carbon tax the central pillar of their climate plans. This fall, under political pressure, they carved out an exception for home heating oil. Now, on a much bigger decision, Ottawa effectively said the carbon tax along with regulations cant get the job done.

But the draft policy does appear workable. The goals are within reach. The oil sands companies have promised 22 megatonnes of lower emissions by 2030, though they are falling behind schedule because theyve been too tentative. The Liberal policy forecasts 20 MT from the oil sands.

The Liberals also forecast oil and gas production to rise 10 per cent by 2030 from current record levels, even as emissions are projected to fall. The suggestion that the emissions cap was masquerading as a cap on production has not been borne out. The onus shifts to industry to focus on emissions.

The biggest issues with the Liberal plan are the entwined questions of uncertainty and durability.

Given the legal and political pitfalls on climate policy in recent months, this space has advocated for rules that survive legal battles and changes in government. The Supreme Court validated national carbon pricing and all provinces, Alberta included, accept it on industrial emissions. The emissions cap would probably be ruled onside by the courts as a valid exercise of federal power, based on precedents, but would also grind through a years-long legal slog. Politically, the Conservatives said theyd scrap the plans and instead talk of technology and clean natural gas exports.

This fog of uncertainty leaves Canada in a costly limbo. The Liberals said draft regulations would land in mid-2024, with final rules in 2025 four years after the idea was proposed. Its difficult for businesses to make decisions involving many billions of dollars, when proposed rules today could vanish tomorrow. This all follows legal and political upheavals around other climate debates in recent months. Its turning into a mess, just at the moment Canada should be speeding ahead on big bets for a low-carbon future.

Parcel out blame all the way around. The Liberals should have chosen the simpler, more durable policy. The Conservatives need to get serious on climate. The oil companies must move faster on cutting emissions. With the global promise to accelerate action this decade, Canada has to decide on the rules and get to work.

See the rest here:
Globe editorial: What the Liberals got wrong and right on the oil emissions cap - The Globe and Mail

A very interesting post, characteristically calm and thoughtful; and Silver's track record in understanding American politics is certainly better than most people's (and surely better than mine). An excerpt, though you should read the whole thing:

A New York Timesheadline, for instance, expressed surprise that "many on the left" were sympathetic to Stefanik. But this isn't properly described as a battle between left and right. Rather, it's a three-way tug-of-war between the left, the right, and liberals.

Proponents of SJL usually dislike variations on the term "woke", but the problem is that theydislike almost every other term as well. And we needsometerm for this ideology, because it encompassesquite a few distinctive featuresthat differentiate it both from liberalism and from traditional, socialist-inflected leftism. In particular, SJL is much less concerned with the material condition of the working class, or with class in general. Instead, it is concerned with identity especially identity categories involving race, gender and sexuality, butsometimes also many others as part of a sort of intersectional kaleidoscope. The focus on identityisn't the only distinctive featureof SJL, but it is at the core of it.

SJLs and liberals have some interests in common. Both are "culturally liberal" on questions like abortion and gay marriage. And both disdain Donald Trump and the modern, MAGA-fied version of the Republican Party. But I'd suggest we've reached a point where they disagree in at least as many ways as they agree. Here are a few dimensions of conflict:

Now, maybe the progressive coalition will get lucky because MAGA-flavored conservatism remains such an unappealing alternative to people outside the Trumpiest 30 percent of the country. But both liberals and SJLs might find temptations: for instance, liberals will be tempted by MAGA pledges to dismantle DEI on campus, even if conservatives arealso quite terrible about protecting academic freedom. Meanwhile, one of Hayek's points was that socialists and conservatives shared a tolerance, if not even a reverence, for authoritarianism. SJL and MAGA could align there as well. SJL has already moved away from the liberal tradition of entrusting people to make their own decisions think of thesince-scuttled Disinformation Governance Board, or thedraconian COVID restrictions on college campuses. If Trump wins next year, this tendency will get worse, and SJLs may more openly question whether democracy works at all.

The old left-right coalitions have long been under strain as America has moved away from materialist politics to the politics of cultural grievance. The clearest manifestation of this has been intense polarization based on educational attainment (the more years of schooling, the more likely you are to vote Democrat). If, however, higher educational institutions and the ideas associated with themcontinue to become more and more unpopular, I'm not sure what happens next.

In the short run, this may be excellent news for conservatives most voters aren't college graduates to begin with, and even college-educated liberals are increasingly coming to see SJL ideas as cringey and unappealing. In the long run, as anger over October 7 and the pandemic era fades, conservatives will have to offer a more appealing alternative, as the current version of the GOP espouses lots of highly unpopular ideas of its own and only the most polarizing, MAGA-iest Republicans can reliably win Republican primaries. The past 20 years of American politics have mostly been characterized by stability: the2020electoral map didn't look much different than the2000one. If the progressive coalition is breaking up, the next 20 could be much more fluid.

Read more here:
Nate Silver on "Why Liberalism and Leftism Are Increasingly at Odds" - Reason

Open this photo in gallery:

Newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus is escorted into the House of Commons by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 3.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Do Liberals understand the concept of conflict of interest? Do they have any coherent theory of the division between the partisan or personal interest and the public interest? Does the distinction even occur to them?

The question arises in the wake of the Greg Fergus affair. Mr. Fergus, though newly selected as Speaker of the House, is no stranger to politics. He has been a member of Parliament for eight years, and a parliamentary secretary to various cabinet ministers for most of that time. He would presumably have watched other Speakers in action, and would have some notion of what the job entails: in particular, refereeing between the contending parties in the House a job for which the first requirement is impartiality.

The Speaker must not only be fair to all sides, but must be seen to be, if he is to command the cross-party confidence needed to maintain control of the House. Since the Speaker is also an MP, elected to Parliament as a member of a particular party, the onus is on the Speaker at all times but especially on a new Speaker to show that he can put those partisan ties aside. I belabour this point not because it is new or surprising, but because it is obvious.

And yet one of his first acts as Speaker was to make a testimonial video for a partisan chum, to be shown at a partisan gathering, and to do so wearing the robes of his consummately non-partisan office.

This is hardly the most serious issue before Parliament. On its own it could be put down to an individual error of judgment. But coming on the heels of a string of similar errors by Liberal MPs and cabinet ministers, it suggests something, shall we say, systemic.

The Prime Minister alone has been responsible for at least three, from the Aga Khan trip to the WE Charity affair to SNC-Lavalin; the latter two also ensnared his finance minister, his principal adviser and the clerk of the privy council. Then there are your garden-variety ethical lapses, from the MP who hired a relative to run her constituency office to the cabinet minister who awarded contracts to a friend.

Mr. Fergus himself was previously caught in an ethics violation, as parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, after writing a letter to the CRTC in support of a television channel with an application before it, leading an exasperated ethics commissioner to call for mandatory training in conflict-of-interest issues for all ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

The thing about all these scandals is that they did not seem, for the most part, to stem from a desire for personal gain or a conscious intent to break the rules: Even in the matter of SNC-Lavalin, those involved seemed somehow to have persuaded themselves they were colouring within the lines.

Rather, what appears to have been at work is a kind of vast unawareness, a genuine cluelessness that anyone could find the promiscuous commingling of interests on display political, personal, business, bureaucratic objectionable. That does not make it better; if anything, it makes it worse. Crooks at least know what laws theyre breaking.

Certainly it is more intractable. It is the consequence of decades of Liberal hegemony, not only political (since 1891, the federal Liberals have won two elections in every three) but more broadly. Liberals, and liberals, are so dominant in our politics, and in the little worlds that revolve around politics the bureaucracy, the courts, the universities and, yes, the media that I think it really is difficult for them to imagine that there exists a world outside their own, except in some vague theoretical sense.

Add in the thousands of activist groups the party has taken care over the years to cultivate with public funds, or the immense archipelago of subsidies to businesses large and small across the country, the whole apparatus of Liberal clientelism, and you have a whole agreeable universe of Liberaldom, a cosmos of comity. A person could spend their whole career inside without ever encountering an unfriendly face.

Thus if they reward or are rewarded by or otherwise are too close to their friends, it is not because they are Their Friends, since as far as they can tell there is no other kind of person. To ask, do Liberals understand conflict of interest, is to ask: Does a fish know it is wet?

Take Mr. Fergus. I said he was no stranger to politics. I understated the matter. Before he was an MP, he was national director of the federal Liberal Party. Before that he was a staffer to two cabinet ministers. Before that he was president of the Young Liberals of Canada. His whole life, in short, has been spent in the company of other Liberals.

That hardly makes him unique. The most blinkered partisans on the Conservative benches are also political lifers, of which the party has more than its share. But Liberal lifers have two things their Conservative counterparts lack. One is assured access to power. Two years in three, historically, Liberals have been in government; in the third, they have been busy preparing for it.

The other is the divine rightness of their cause. Liberals have always been prone to being corrupted by power, but the current crop of Liberals are unique for being corrupted by their own virtue. The preening moral vanity that is a signature of the Trudeau Liberals the gratitude, as in the Pharisees prayer, that they are not like other men is not, alas, an act. They truly believe it, to the point that they are literally incapable of conceiving of themselves doing wrong.

It isnt only that they are surrounded by people like themselves, in other words: They are surrounded by people who think like them, and whose first thought at all times is that whatever it is they are thinking must be for the Good. If they are aware that there are other types of people or other ways of thinking, it is only as a cautionary tale like the ogres in folk stories, an example of the threats that lurk for the unwary.

So, for example, when it came to appointing someone to look into allegations that China had interfered in Canadas elections on behalf of the Liberals and that various Liberal cabinet ministers had looked the other way at it it was the most natural thing in the world for the Prime Minister to appoint, as special rapporteur, a lifelong family friend, one of 23 governing members of his family foundation, and a previous beneficiary of the same governments patronage.

A cynic would suggest the Prime Minister appointed someone he could count on to keep shtum. I think it literally didnt occur to him there was anything wrong with it. I think he thought this was a perfectly splendid appointment. As, indeed, did many others outside his immediate circle, who applauded it at the time. Some still do.

If all of this leaves the impression that the Conservatives are the victims of the piece, it shouldnt. Liberal political and cultural hegemony is as much the Conservatives doing not only for the political ineptness that has so often delivered the Liberals safely, even miraculously, into power, but for their own willingness to inhabit the stereotypes Liberals make of them.

If people in the bureaucracy, or the law, or the universities, are inclined to see the Conservatives, and conservatives, as the barbarians at the gate, it is not entirely a matter of snobbery or bias. It is also because, all too often, especially of late, they have acted like it. Tory paranoia is not entirely unwarranted, but neither is it entirely undeserved.

The long and honourable conservative tradition of skepticism of intellectuals that is, of overzealous, overweening intellectuals has congealed into a hostility to science, to expertise, even to facts. The proud conservative tradition of defending Parliament, and parliamentary prerogatives, has given way to fantasies of abolishing judicial oversight, or ignoring the division of powers, or simply defying the law. Conservatism, as such, with its bedrock insistence on rules-based orders and limited government, has increasingly been subsumed by populism, which acknowledges no such rules or limits.

None of this is the least bit necessary. It is not written in stone that the universities must always be hostile to conservatives: If conservatism is not adequately represented in the academy, the answer is to reform the academy, not to demonize it. If the courts lean left, focus on building a body of conservative legal scholarship, and conservative jurists, rather than running roughshod over judicial independence. If the media arent giving you a fair shake oh, come on: Youre in the media manipulation business. And were easily manipulated.

Would an incoming Conservative government be viewed with some suspicion by the Ottawa bureaucracy? After all that has gone before, probably. But most of them are fair-minded professionals with a job to do. A smart Conservative government would look for ways to build alliances and get things done; it would give the benefit of the doubt to those that gave it the benefit of the doubt. A dumb Conservative government would carry on with the same strategy of polarization and picking fights that got it there.

Each of the parties has its faults, in other words. Both are, in their own way, the product of Liberal hegemony what the late Richard Gwyn called one-and-a-half-party rule. If the besetting Liberal sin is arrogance, the feeling they are (literally, in some cases) born to rule, the besetting Tory sin is resentment, the sense that everyone and everything is stacked against them. Given power, then, both tend to abuse it: the Liberals, because they can, the Tories because, as they see it, they must.

There is only one cure for this, in the end: contestable politics. Only when either party, in any given election, can as readily expect to be in government as in opposition, will each be relieved of its particular historical baggage. Only then will our politics converge on decent democratic norms.

The rest is here:
Opinion: Do the Liberals even understand what a conflict of interest is? Does a fish know it's wet? - The Globe and Mail